Showing posts with label label. Show all posts
Showing posts with label label. Show all posts

Friday, July 5, 2013

White people to tackle dangerous stereotypes

pic: wikimedia
In response to racial tensions across the globe, white people have banded together to protest against the widespread and dangerous stereotypes associated with their skin colour.

According the newly founded United Movement for Liberation from Unfair and Naughty Generalisations against Us (UMLUNGU), they will be tackling dangerous myths such as "all whites are rich" and "all whites love Woolies, Salmon and UCT".

"White people are also the targets of hateful and hurtful racist rhetoric," said Protest coordinator Skree Manshowt."I for one can tell you that fish makes me physically sick," said a man who was so white he makes Casper the Ghost look like a black hole. "And honestly, Woolies is just overrated and repackaged food items resold in nice plastic and so on at a much higher price. I actually shop at Checkers like a lot of bla... like a lot of people, some of whom are my closest friends."

Many other respondents agreed.

"All my friends look at me and think I have three iPods, a huge house, and a hot sister," said Bradley Conners. "But these baseless prejudices couldn't be further from the truth! We have a small three-bedroom flat in Seapoint, I only have an iPod Mini, and my sister is like, only a 6.3."

The protest movement's work, which draws on the work of famous identity and representation theorists such as Stuart Hall, Chris Barker, Michael Banton and Richard Dyer, says that many stereotypes have to be understood by their corollaries.

"When you say that black people are criminals, or are lazy, you have to understand via oppositional construction the very hurtful, baseless and dangerous things these say about whites," said Race, Identity and Social Change lecturer at Rhodes University Prince Jeanloo.

The organisers of the movement have agreed

"Many studies have shown that almost 1% of prison convictions in this country are of white people. We suffer gross racial discrimination in that we are given fair trials and access to good lawyers just because of our skin colour," said the movement's Chief of Staff Reyp Rezentayshun. "Also, I don't know if you've ever met a BA kid at Rhodes. Work isn't exactly their middle name.”

The movement's protest has been met with much support from universities and media firms.

"We think this is a great opportunity to shed light on a scarce topic," said CEO of media24 Tranz Mitt. "After all, it's not like we have too many white people on TV."